Water supply in the west isn't only about rain, or the lack thereof. A good deal of water scarcity issues have to do with decades-old policy and entrenched infrastructure. It’s a convoluted situation, and a team of reporters are working to make sense and put broader perspective on the western water crisis and the central role of the Colorado River.

All the metric scales in the world — from those at a Polish deli to the big ones at a South African junkyard — are ultimately calibrated against a 125-year-old chunk of metal in a vault on the outskirts of Paris. Its mass is the definition of a kilogram. There’s just one problem: That chunk of metal seems to be losing weight.

Part of a plane wing washed up on a beach on the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean this week. The wreckage is now en route to France for identification. It appears to be part of a Boeing 777. Malaysia Airlines flight 370 — which mysteriously disappeared over the Indian Ocean last year — was also a Boeing 777.

This rugged little ant is small but mighty. It prefers to scavenge for food when the sun is really bearing down, with air temperatures up to 127 degrees and sand temperatures approaching 150. In fact, it's the heat that is their best ally.

Greenland is melting fast, and that's bad news for sea level rise and other impacts of climate change. But The World's Ari Daniel, on assignment with scientists studying a rapidly melting Greenland glacier, says all that bad news doesn't make the world's biggest island any less of a wondrous place.

Updated

07/29/2015 - 10:30am

The Japanese economy saw its heyday back in the 1980s. Since then, businesses have been slow to innovate. And the population is aging and declining. The tech startup scene was bleak, until recently. Here's one community that's been generating some noise, just a bit under the radar.

As many already know, honey bees aren't doing so well: hives are being abandoned like ghost ships, a deadly brew of fungus, mite, and pesticides are all contributing to widespread colony collapse. It turns out, their wild cousin the bumblebee isn't fairing too well either — and one of main reasons may be climate change.

In the US, momentum seemed to be building to take more aggressive steps to address climate change. Then the Supreme Court stepped in. Now — at least as regards limiting toxic mercury levels — it’s back to the drawing board for the EPA.

Updated

07/04/2015 - 11:30am

El Niño is back. That could mean trouble for crops from Africa to Australia, drought relief for Brazil and California — and new record global temperatures as the Pacific Ocean warms up and brings the heat along with it.

If you've given up on reading paper books for the ease of your e-reader's screen, you may want to step back a bit. Neuroscience confirms that our brains use different areas to read on paper and screens, and you need to exercise both.

We humans have been dropping "um," "uh" and other expressions of hesitation into our speech for a long time — maybe for as long as we've had language. More recently, linguists are noting a shift in usage across a number of Germanic languages from "uh" to "um."

Scientists are warning West African villagers to stop hunting bush meat and to stay away from fruit bats as they circle in a possible animal source for the latest Ebola outbreak. The Ebola virus lives in fruit bats, scientists believe, and is threatening communities who are already facing the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history.

Plants have senses that put humans to shame. Not only do they hear (yes, it's true) and smell, they can also sense the presence of water, and even an object in their space. Now new research suggests that plants can actually learn and remember.

Scientists say a girl born with HIV two-and-a-half years ago appears to have been cured. Though the apparent breakthrough is limited to one infant case, the news may give hope to the millions of people living with the HIV virus around the globe.

You may have noticed that more and more wine bottles — even expensive ones — are increasingly coming with screw tops and synthetic stoppers. You might not think much about the stopper when you make a purchase, but cork producers want you to start. They're mounting a campaign to show that real cork is better for the planet.

People around the world are up in arms about the way Danish zoo officials killed a healthy giraffe and fed it to the lions. But the zoo is defending its decision as a way of protecting the giraffe population from inbreeding.

If you've given up on reading paper books for the ease of your e-reader's screen, you may want to step back a bit. Neuroscience confirms that our brains use different areas to read on paper and screens, and you need to exercise both.

Plants have senses that put humans to shame. Not only do they hear (yes, it's true) and smell, they can also sense the presence of water, and even an object in their space. Now new research suggests that plants can actually learn and remember.

A new plan announced by the US government would restore seven million acres of lost habitat for the monarch butterfly and other pollinating insects like honeybees, and scientists says the plan comes not a moment too soon for the troubled insects.

With the Ebola outbreak not yet behind us, global health workers are already scrambling to prevent what could be the next big outbreak of an emerging disease caused by a virus that jumped from animals into humans. In Tanzania, an organization is trying a new approach to tracking these new viruses and preventing another pandemic.

When a language goes extinct, it takes a wealth of knowledge about its local environment along with it. A new reports says that may be why languages and biodiversity are declining at similar rates around the world.

Six women programmed ENIAC for the United States Army during World War II, but when the computer was presented to the public, they weren't even thanked or named. Now a lawyer and filmmaker is trying to set the historical record straight and help rediscover all of science's forgotten female pioneers.

Scientists thought they knew how the human body worked. They thought they knew how the immune system worked. They were wrong. A recent discovery found a previously unknown path for the immune system into the brain.

The Interior Department, responsible for the 59 national parks, has an extremely popular Instagram feed to share the beauty that the parks hold. And it's a good thing, a lot of us don't ever get to see the parks. One thing is certain if you've been to a national park recently — they are a huge draw for international tourists. Here are 20 amazing photos featured on the Interior's Instagram.

On the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar, hundreds of households too poor and remote to have access to the electrical grid are getting low cost solar power for the first time, from a group of local female engineers trained by and Indian NGO. It's the first of several "solar mamas" projects planned for parts of rural Africa, and it's turning some traditional gender roles on their head.

Whether it’s driving five miles over the speed limit or breezing past a stop sign on your bike, chances are, we have all broken a few — or more — rules of the road. When it comes to obeying traffic laws, “we’re all criminals,” says the author of this survey.